SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2024

*Does not include entry into main festival event

FREE beginner classes & demonstrations throughout the day Saturday Sept 21! No admission required but seating is first come, first served. Bring your ukulele; if you don't have one, there will be a variety of entry-level friendly instruments available for purchase. Prize giveaways, too!

Teens and adults: join us and jumpstart your musical journey - you'll be strumming your first song by the end of the hour! Pre-teen kids are welcome with parent supervision and encouragement. Bernadette Plazola is a certified music teacher and holds a bachelor's degree in music and a master's degree in education.

For all rank novices who have never played an instrument before but with a focus on seniors seeking mental exercise - because learning something new is great for brain health! Melanie Lawson Kareem is the Founder and Creative Director of Get Started Playing Ukulele; her proprietary teaching materials and methods simplify and expedite the learning process.

Confident Beginner: You can strum through the basic chords without breaking the rhythm. Perhaps you've nailed down a couple of strumming and fingerpicking patterns as well. 

Intermediate level: You have an extended chord vocabulary and can strum a steady rhythm while singing. An intermediate student is able to catch on and follow along on simple tunes fairly quickly.

Advanced level: You can hear chord progressions, mastered some chord inversions and barre/4-fingered closed chords and can strum/fingerpick a steady rhythm while changing chords.

There'll be two 30-min group strum-along's led by Peter Luongo at 12pm and 1:30pm

Spice up your strumming withy Viggy in this rockin' workshop all about percussive ukulele! You'll learn how to incorporate kick drums, snare drums, and hi hats into your playing - no drum set needed!  

Jeff will teach the basics of fingerstyle ukulele technique with two pieces that focus on separation of bass and melody and arpeggio technique. You
will learn how to set up the right and left hands for effortless playing and techniques that can be applied to any style of music you play. Alternating bass and the Travis Picking technique will also be explored to expand your musical horizons while having
fun playing "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac.

Blues is a universal musical language that bridges various music styles, making it a perfect focus for our workshop. You'll learn one of Boris' original 12-bar blues themes he composed especially for this event. He'll break down chords, melody, rhythm, strumming, and percussive playing. The highlight will be learning to play together as a band, incorporating different parts to create a harmonious sound like an orchestra or a real band. 

Learn the rhythms and tonalities of the Italian mediterranean style, school of Taranta

"Slack Key" - or Ki Ho'alu in Hawaiian - refers to the open tuned guitar style that originated among the Hawaiian cowboys. In this class, Dr Kamuela Kimokeo (Director of the Hawai‘i Music Institute and head of the music program at Windward Community College) will show you how to recreate the quintessential sound of the islands - in standard ukulele tuning. 

In this workshop Sammy will teach you how to play many new exciting variations of chords that will add some wonder to your sound, without learning a million new chord shapes. Sammy will break down the theory behind this so that you can apply it to whatever chord or song you're playing - no previous theory knowledge needed!

Learn two short traditional songs in the flamenco style named after the town they came from: Sevilla. There are hundreds of these songs that all share the same form. They are easy to learn and combine a tasty right hand strum with Spanish melodies and can be played solo, as a duet or as a group, and will lead to hours of fun long after the class is over.